Submissions

Author Guidelines

Submitting a manuscript

The editorial process takes place on the journal.fi platform.

Tahiti publishes peer-reviewed articles and other scientific texts, such as review articles, commentaries, book reviews and lectio praecursoria (more details below). Articles written in other than Finnish or Swedish are only published in special issues or when agreed upon separately. 

Tahiti publishes the following scientific articles:

• Peer-reviewed articles (A1) of maximum length of 40,000 characters, including spaces, sans references and bibliography. The articles bring forth new research results in a format that is publicly available, repeatable and utilisable. The text must have a clear structure and it must answer the research question or problem posed in the beginning. The article must pass peer reviews by two experts.

• Review articles (B1): shorter scientific articles, introductions of research projects, as well as seminar, conference and exhibition reports. The topic of a review article must be strictly defined and the chosen perspective and terms must be defined. The examined topic must be contextualised and the text must discuss earlier research while highlighting the writer’s own thoughts and analyses. References are used in review articles. The maximum length is 20,000, including spaces and references.

• Commentaries (B1): More opinion-based and subjective texts, inaugural speeches and keynote lectures. The texts may have less references. The maximum length is 20,000 characters.

• Lectio praecursoria for dissertations (B1) related to art history research. When necessary, references are used in lectio praecursoria, and they are always published in their original language.

• Book reviews (B1) from one or more works that cover the same theme. The maximum length is 10,000 characters, including spaces. References are used in book reviews.

The journal only publishes previously unpublished articles. Parallel publishing is allowed after the publishing date.

Publishing in Tahiti is free of charge. As a general rule, the journal does not financially compensate writers. The author is responsible for the copyrights of images used in their articles, unless otherwise agreed. If the manuscript is written in a non-native language, the article must be proofread and the author must pay for the expenses.

References and bibliography

References and bibliography are formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style author-date system. Sources are cited within the text, in parentheses, by author’s last name, year of publication, and possible page number(s). Footnotes can be used for secondary discussion but avoid long footnote commentaries. A separate bibliography is included at the end of the article. If needed, list published and unpublished sources under separate subheadings.

Please note: In all languages, use & instead of and/ja/och when listing the names of authors or editors. If there are more than three authors, mention only the first one in the reference and add et al. after it (e.g. Johnson et al.). In the bibliography, mention all names if there are fewer than ten.

Examples

Citation within the text:

• (Chadwick 2017, 103–104) or “According to Chadwick (2017, 103–104)…”
• (Gutman 2023)
• (Hiekkanen 1998, 230; Langfeld 2015, 68–101)
• (O’Neill, Steeds & Wilson, 2017)
• (Society for Art History in Finland, n.d.)

Bibliography:

• Chadwick, Whitney. 2017. The Militant Muse: Love, War and the Women of Surrealism. Thames & Hudson.
• Gutman, Laura. 2023. “Werner von Hausen and Emile Bernard: Exploring the Fragmentary Sources of von Hausen’s Antimodernism.” Tahiti 13 (2): 71–85. http://doi.org/10.23995/tht.137442
• Hiekkanen, Markus. 1998. ”Taideteosten ja rakennusten ajoitus.” In Katseen rajat: taidehistorian metodologiaa, edited by Arja Elovirta & Ville Lukkarinen, 228–38. Helsingin yliopiston Lahden tutkimus- ja koulutuskeskus.
• Langfeld, Gregor. 2015. German Art in New York: The Canonization of Modern Art 1904–1957. Translated by Steven Lindberg. Amsterdam University Press.
• O’Neill, Paul, Lucy Steeds & Paul Wilson. 2017. How Institutions Think: Between Contemporary Art and Curatorial Discourse. MIT Press.
• Society for Art History in Finland, n.d. “History.” Accessed 27 November 27, 2024. http://www.taidehistorianseura.fi/en/history/

More information for other cases can be found in the Chicago Manual of Style guidelines.

Formatting of the manuscript

• Font size 12 (Times New Roman), line spacing 1,5
• The submitted manuscript’s language and style must be polished. The text must be clear. Avoid too long and rambling phases and unnecessary loan words.
• The title may not contain more than two parts.
• The subheadings should only contain one part. They are separated from the body text with line spacing and a larger font size. Do not use capitals.
• The paragraphs are separated by line spacing and written without indentations.
• Boldface or underlining are not used in the text. Highlighting is done by using cursive.
• Short citations (max. two sentences) are indicated with quotation marks. Longer citations are indicated with a smaller font size and separated with line spacing as its own paragraph.
• An omitted part of a citation is indicated with: [...]
• An abstract and keywords are added at the beginning of the article. A short introduction of the author is added at the end of the article.
  
  

Images

Images and captions must be submitted with the manuscript. However, do not include images in the text file. The number of images should be reasonable: a maximum of about 10 images in peer-reviewed articles and about 5 images in review articles. The placement of the images is indicated in the manuscript in brackets [Image 8].

In a manuscript that is meant to be evaluated by the editorial team or referees, the images may be smaller in resolution. In the page layout stage, the images are submitted in a printable size (dimensions min. 1,000 x 1,000 PX, resolution min. 300 dpi). If needed, smaller images may also be accepted. The image filename is the last name of the author and the image number (e.g. Image4_Laaksonen).

The author is responsible for obtaining the publication rights for the images and for all charges related to the images, unless otherwise agreed. An account about the publication rights of the images must be provided to the journal.

Captions

The captions are submitted as a separate doc or docx file. The caption must include adequate copyright, source information and the required license information (all rights reserved or CC license). They may also include a sentence that describes the significance of the image to the text.

Image 1. Giambattista Tiepolo, The Rape of the Sabine Women, 1718-1719. Oil paint on a canvas, 43,5 x 74 cm. Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki. Image: Valtion taidemuseon konservointilaitos / Maija Santala, all rights reserved.

Image 2. Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, Self-Portrait with a Harp, 1791. Oil paint on a canvas, 193 x 128,9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image source: metmuseum.org, license CC0. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436222

Image 3. An image of the first motorway of Finland, Tarvontie. Image: Finnish Heritage Agency, Historical Picture Collection, Collection of Matkailun edistämiskeskus / H. T. Lehmusto 1963. Source: finna.fi, license CC BY 4.0.
https://finna.fi/Record/museovirasto.4DABA4B29F9A7145005BAB51AA012EED

Along with the submitted manuscript, also provide the following:

• The writer's information: name, degree, occupation, phone number and email address
• A short introduction of the author (2-3 sentences), which will be published with the article
• The keywords of the article
• A summary of the article’s contents in the language the article is written in. The length of a summary of a scientific article is 1,000-1,500 characters with spaces. In other texts, a 1–2-sentence concise description is sufficient (e.g. “Book review: Jorma Mikola, Alttarilta alttarille: alttaritaulumaalaus Suomessa autonomia-ajan loppupuolella” or 2A review article of the ICOM world conference”). A summary in another language may also be included. The summary is important because library databases and other databases may publish it on their website.

Peer review

All research articles are evaluated by the editorial team before peer review. They may already suggest some changes to the article at this point. Tahiti does not commit in advance to publish submitted material.

Double-blind practice is adhered to in peer review, which means that the writer and the referee are unaware of each other’s identity. All articles are read by at least two peer reviewers, who are not a part of the editorial team. Peer reviewing usually takes 1–2 months. The schedule of corrections and publication after the peer review is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Tahiti has agreed to comply with the requirements set for the use of the peer-reviewed scholarly publications label of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies. We archive proposed articles, the information of the referees, statements and decisions about publication according to the documentation obligation that binds scientific publication.

The peer reviews should be written in a short and concise manner. The goal of the review is to ensure the quality of the scientific article and also to help the writer to improve their text. The referee is asked to pay attention to the following:

• Are the research questions and objectives of the article defined clearly?
• Are the conclusions presented clearly and do they answer the questions asked by the author?
• Does the writer bring forth and justify new and significant information about the topic or the examined target?
• Are the references and research literature used by the author sufficient and relevant concerning the research questions and examined target of the article?
• Is the argumentation logical and sufficient?
• Is the text stylistically fluent and grammatically correct?

The referees are asked to clearly define if the article is:

• acceptable as it is
• acceptable with proposed modifications
• acceptable with proposed modifications that are so extensive that they must be revised again by a peer reviewer
• if the article must be rejected overall.